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Sociology Department, Faculty Publications
Sociology, Department of
2004
Hull-House Maps and Papers
Mary Jo Deegan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected]
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Deegan, Mary Jo, "Hull-House Maps and Papers" (2004). Sociology Department, Faculty Publications. Paper 321.
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Deegan, Mary Jo . 2004. "Hull-House Maps and Papers." Pp. 386-387 in Poverty;11 the UIIUed
States: All ElIeycloped;a ojH;story, PolU;cs, and Pohey, Vol. I , edited by Gwendolyn Mink
and Alice O'Connor. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Hull-House Maps and Papers _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Hull .. House Maps
and Papers
Hull-House Maps and Papers (HHMP) was a
groundbreaking text published in 1895 by the
residents of Hull House, led by Jane Addams and
Florence Kelley. They described and measured
group patterns associated with immigrants, working conditions, specific laborers, labor unions,
social settlements, and the function of art in the
community. Women's moral agency was central
to their use of social science to improve democracy and the lives of the disenfranchised.
Charles Booth's seventeen-volume study Life
and Labour of the People in London (1892-1902)
served as the model for HHMP. HHMP, in tum,
became the model for studies of African American communities. Isabel Eaton, a young Quaker
who had published a chapter in HHMP, helped
make this cOlmection through her association
with W. E. B. Du Bois on The Philadelphia Negro
386
(1899). Other African American scholaractivists, notably Monroe Work and Richard
R. Wright Jr., were inspired by this latter book
to map life in other African American communities.
Hull House residents continued to map cultural, social, political, and demographic information in their neighborhood for the next forty
years. As the neighborhood was increasingly
studied (for example, by occupations, family
size, housing, milk quality, food use, and epidemiology), the findings were charted and hung
on the walls of Hull House for the neighbors to
see and discuss.
The mapping of social and demographic characteristics of a population within a geographical
area became the core methodology of sociologists
at the University of Chicago during the 1920s
and 1930s. Acknowledgment that this methodological technique was associated with Hull
House residents is singularly lacking in academic sociology. The Hull House residents'
empirical studies also helped establish the major
topics for academic sociology from the 1890s
until the present.
The use of mapping by Hull House residents
was radically different from its scholarly use by
white male sociologists of the Chicago schooL
The academics' maps revealed the lives of the
people of the neighborhood to an audience of
experts and decision makers. The Hull House
maps revealed to the people of the neighborhood
that their lifestyles had patterns and implications
that could be used to make more-informed decisions about community issues and interests.
Repeatedly, the Hull House residents and neighbors initiated major social changes as a result of
this information; for example, they worked to
establish the eight-hour day, the minimum wage,
and the elimination of child labor. They also
worked in numerous social movements, for labor
unions, women's suffrage, and arts and crafts.
Mary }o Deegan
See also: Hull House; Poverty Research; Settlement
Houses
_____________________________________________________________________ Hunger
References and Further Reading
Booth, Charles. 1892-1902. The Life and Labour of
tl1e People in London. 17 vols. London: Macmillan.
Deegan, Mary Jo. 1988. Jane Addams and the Men of
the Chicago School, 1892-1920. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction Books.
-----.2002. Race, Hull-House, and the University
of Chicago. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Du Bois, W E. B. [189911967. The Philadelphia Negro:
A Social Study. Together with a Special Report on
Domestic Service by Isabel Eaton. New York: BenjaminBlom.
Hull House, Residents of. 1895. Hull-House Maps and
Papers. New York: Crowell.
/
387